We are thrilled to feature our own Principal Oboist Aleh Remezau in our second concert of the season. On October 21, come hear Aleh’s performance as soloist in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Concerto for Oboe and Strings!

“It has been a great privilege to make music with my colleagues at the HPO and to be a part of the Hamilton community. I am thrilled to be performing my first concerto with the orchestra in October. The Vaughan Williams Concerto for Oboe and Strings is a very inward and intimate work that he wrote at the end of the Second World War. Even though it was a time of suffering and uncertainty, this oboe concerto is full of peace, playfulness and nostalgia which is very contrary to many compositions coming from that period of time. I think it is a work that was supposed to unite people in a time when the world was very divided. A lot of the writing between the oboe and the strings is complimentary – sharing the melody and accompaniment between the voices. I love playing with our string section at the HPO and am curious about the ideas that they will bring to this music. We need more love and joy in our world today and I hope that this performance can at least spark a bit of that in our community.“

– Aleh Remezau

Aleh in the Orchestra

After joining the Hamilton Philharmonic in 2020 as Principal Oboe, Remezau’s playing has been highlighted in major works such as Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite and Rimsky Korsakov’s Scheherazade. During his first season, he was a featured musician on the orchestra’s video broadcasts of Mozart’s Oboe Quartet and Tomasi’s Evocations for Solo Oboe.

Remezau is renowned for his “sensuous and exuberant” performances (The Millbrook Independent) and “incredibly expressive” playing (Vancouver Sun). Having established himself as a sought-after orchestral musician, he has performed in major Canadian venues as well as concert halls in the United States, Austria and the United Kingdom. He has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, National Ballet Orchestra of Canada, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony as well as guest Principal Oboe with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Canadian Opera Company and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. He appears regularly with the Esprit Orchestra, performing as both Principal Oboist and solo English horn.

Remezau was an inaugural member of The Orchestra Now (TON) – a training orchestra based at Bard College, New York. With TON, he was a frequent performer at Alice Tully Hall, The Metropolitan Museum, and Carnegie Hall. In 2018, he was one of select few musicians invited to perform at the renowned Grafenegg Festival in Austria. While living in New York City, he has performed numerous times on oboe and English horn with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of world class conductors including Jaap van Zweden, Manfred Honeck, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Neeme Jarvi and others. You can hear Aleh’s playing on the New York Philharmonic’s 2017 Grammy nominated recording of Christopher Rouse’s Symphony No. 4.

Aleh outside of the orchestra

Remezau performs extensively outside of the orchestra, seeking out different ways to connect and share his art with audiences. As a chamber musician, he has performed at the Ottawa Chamberfest, Scotia Festival, Sweetwater Music Festival and Big Lake Festival. He has also performed as a pit musician on Broadway’s musical Wicked, as well as the Shaw Festival.

Remezau is a member of The Happenstancers, an adventurous Toronto-based chamber ensemble featuring “an obscene amount of talent” (The WholeNote). In this ensemble, he has brought “considerable virtuosity” to works for oboe and English horn by Oliver Knussen and Elliott Carter, presenting concerts hailed as “bizarrely eclectic, 
very intriguing and rewarding” (John Gilks, operaramblings).

Aleh Remezau first began his musical studies on piano, and later picked up the oboe at fifteen. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto, where he studied with Clare Scholtz. Remezau also studied with Liang Wang at the Manhattan School of Music. He is an alumnus of The Music Academy of the West and Domaine Forget.

Aleh Remezau takes the spotlight

Join us this October for Aleh’s enchanting performance of Vaughan William’s Oboe Concerto!

BRITTEN, VAUGHAN WILLIAMS & ELGAR
October 21, 2023 at 7:30pm

James Kahane, Conductor
Aleh Remezau, Oboe

  • Britten, Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge*
  • Vaughan Williams, Oboe Concerto
  • Kathryn Knowles (23-24 Composer Fellow), A Strange and Preposterous Affair**
  • Elgar, Enigma Variations


*Players Choice
**World premiere

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Published on September 25, 2023